Sprinkler systems will be mandatory in all seniors’ homes under new rules coming later this week, says Premier Kathleen Wynne.

Fire crews attend to a deadly fire at a retirement home in Hawkesbury, Ont., on Friday, May 25, 2012 .The president of Ontario Association of Fire Chiefs confirmed there were no sprinklers in the home, where an elderly couple died.

Sprinkler systems will be mandatory in all seniors’ homes under new rules coming later this week, says Premier Kathleen Wynne.

Speaking to the annual general meeting of the Ontario Association of Fire Chiefs on Monday, Wynne praised them for their efforts toward “enhancing fire safety and housing for seniors and other vulnerable people.”

“The OAFC for many years has been a leading advocate for making sprinklers mandatory in existing senior’s residences and homes for our most vulnerable citizens,” the premier said.

“Our government supports that position and that’s why we’re moving to make automatic sprinklers mandatory in residences for seniors, people with disabilities, and other vulnerable citizens of Ontario.”

There have been at least 45 fire-related deaths in Ontario seniors’ homes since 1980.

Community Safety Minister Madeleine Meilleur said the changes to the fire code would be unveiled Thursday.

“The change will take affect soon. It’s very good news because we’re the first in Canada to have done that,” Meilleur told reporters at Queen’s Park.

“It’s for the safety of our most vulnerable people. I don’t want to … see any other senior or vulnerable person in Ontario to pass away in a fire in their residence because we have not adopted this regulation,” she said.

So far it’s unclear how long seniors’ homes will be given to retrofit and what costs would be covered.

It’s expected that all nursing and retirement homes with more than four residents would have to install sprinklers within the next five years.

In January, former premier Dalton McGuinty’s government pledged $20 million over two years to install sprinkler systems in seniors’ facilities, check electrical systems, and enhance staff training.

That money was promised in the wake of a Star investigation that found residents in many seniors’ homes were at risk because their buildings lack fire-suppressing gear.

While residences built after 1998 must have sprinklers, such devices have not been required in some 4,000 older facilities across the province, which house more than 200,000 seniors and other vulnerable residents.

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